The Scourge of Worker Wellness Programs
“To address the sort of everyday issues that can lead to bad health, workers might look to the West Virginia teacher strikes for motivation. Nicole McCormick is a teacher in Mercer County, West Virginia, and the president of her local union. She says that once her colleagues saw that their health activities were being tracked, they were strongly motivated to join together and, eventually, strike, saying, “We’re not trained dogs that you can click a dog clicker at and give us a treat and we’ll roll over and do what you want.” When it comes to health and safety, unions speak often of focusing on the hazard, not the worker: eliminate the hazard (say, by providing ergonomic office equipment) and the potential harm (repetitive stress injury) goes away. Through organizing, workers can force their employers to make changes at work that will help them stay healthy.”
I've long been wary of the wellness programs workplaces offer, mostly because I think they're an invasion of privacy, the information they're seeking should be between you and your doctor. In addition, the metrics are fuzzy and aren't truly how you measure if a person is healthy. But as the article said, as long as we tie healthcare to employers and it's all about cost, of course they're going to try and pass off costs on to employees.